CINEMATIC REVELATIONS allows me the luxury of writing, editing and archiving my film and television reviews. Some reviews appeared initially in "The Commercial Dispatch" and "The Planet Weekly" and then later in the comment archives at the Internet Movie Database. IMDB.COM, however, imposes a limit on both the number of words and the number of times that an author may revise their comments. I hope that anybody who peruses these expanded reviews will find them useful.

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Sunday, February 3, 2013

A FILM REVIEW OF "BULLET TO THE HEAD" (2013)

Watching the
Sylvester Stallone shoot’em up “Bullet to the Head” (**** OUT OF ****) felt like
a blast from the past. This polished but
predictable anthology of action movie clichés contains several R-rated,
close-quarters, combat scenes with sufficient amounts of blood splatter and
gore; some high-octane, fireball explosions; lots of snappy tough guy banter; and
surprising displays of frontal female nudity.
Half the scenes reminded me of producer Joel Silver’s explosive, slam-bang,
white-knuckled, testosterone-laden tales, such as “Conspiracy Theory,” “Exit
Wounds, “Swordfish,” and his “Lethal Weapon” franchise. Indeed, Silver serves as one of the producers,
and “Bullet to the Head” adheres to his formula. Meanwhile, action auteur Walter Hill drew the
other half from his hardboiled melodramas.
For the record, Hill helmed the two “48 Hrs” flicks with Nick Nolte and
Eddie Murphy, “Extreme Prejudice” with Nick Nolte, “Last Man Standing” with
Bruce Willis, and “Red Heat” co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and James
Belushi. Although “The Messenger”
scenarist Alessandro Camon adapted the Alexis Nolent graphic novel "Du
plomb dans la tête,” “Bullet to the Head” looks like “48 Hrs” and/or “Red Heat”
clone. Mind you, “Bullet to the Head” is
Hill’s first theatrical release since his gritty 2002 prison melodrama
“Undisputed” with Ving Rhames and Wesley Snipes. During his absence from the big screen, Hill
helmed the premiere episode of HBO’s “Deadwood,” and then the television
mini-series western “Broken Trail” (2006) costarring Robert Duvall and Thomas
Haden Church.” In many respects, this action-packed,
largely straightforward, odd couple buddy picture compares favorably with
earlier, exceptional Stallone sagas like “Assassins,” “The Specialist,” and
“Demolition Man.” Most definitely, it
surpasses “Tango and Cash” and “Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot.”

Cast as a
seasoned hit-man in the Crescent City, Sylvester Stallone tangles with a mysterious
cabal of Big Easy investors who have the New Orleans Police Department on their
payroll. Director Walter Hill has
juggled the occupations of the protagonists from his earlier buddy picture epics. The cop was always the lead in the combo in the
“48 Hrs” movies and “Red Heat.” This
time around, world-weary, career criminal James “Bobo” Bonomo (Sylvester Stallone
of “Rocky”) is the lead, while saintly, Washington, D.C. Detective Taylor Kwon (Sung
Kang of “Fast & Furious”) behaves rather naively and relies too much on his
cell phone. Ironically, the two men want
to exact vengeance for the deaths of their former partners. They agree to form an uneasy alliance, but
Kwon’s conscience prompts him to constrain Bonomo. These two don’t immediately
run into each other. When the plot unfolds, Bonomo and his partner Louis
Blanchard (Jon Seda of “Bad Boys 2”) masquerade as cops to snuff a cocaine-snorting
thug, Hank Greely (Holt McCallany of “Fight Club”), in a motel room. Bonomo spots a tattooed prostitute cowering in
the shower, but he lets her live. This
amoral murderer draws the line at shooting women. When he is behind the wheel on the road, he
swerves to avoid stray cats in front of him.
“It’s bad luck,” he assures Louis.
These two show up at a crowded bar where they are supposed to pick up
the balance of their loot for the shooting. Before either realizes they have been
double-crossed, another assassin, Keegan (Jason Momoa of “Conan”), stabs poor
Louis repeatedly to death in front of everybody. He wields a small blade to hack both of Louis’
lungs so nobody in the noisy bar knows a murder has occurred. Keegan isn’t quite as lucky with Bonomo. Now, Bonomo wants payback. Our hero crosses paths with a hard-nosed, Washington,
D.C. police detective who is visiting New Orleans. As it turns out, Hank Greely was his former
partner in Washington. Kwon wants the
people who ordered Hank’s demise. Sure,
neither Bonomo nor Kwon have much use for each other initially, but they kind
of grow on one other as they survive back-to-back fracases.

Hill stages
some gripping shoot-out scenes that genre fans will savor, and you get to see
Silver's trademark Ka-Boom explosions! Hill
never lets the narrative bog down in aimless chatter or an over elaborate
plot. Stallone’s character provides
deadpan narration throughout the pyrotechnics so you never take anything seriously
in “Bullet to the Head.” “Bullet to the
Head” is not unlike a Tarantino thriller.
Camon and Hill wrap up everything, but leave room for a sequel since the
hero’s daughter and the D.C. cop are dating. At 66 years of age, Sylvester Stallone appears
as fit as a fiddle. This is the kind of
movie where guys shed shirts and clash muscles. He channels a little bit of “Rocky” in his
tongue-in-cheek performance. The ax
fight between beefy, muscle-bound Jason Momoa and Stallone has been carefully
edited to present both to maximum advantage.
You know Stallone is going to triumph, but Momoa doesn’t make it look
easy. Momoa makes a lusty villain. No less villainous is Adewale
Akinnuoye-Agbaje as a crippled, African investor has no qualms about murder. Christian Slater appears briefly as a smarmy swindler
with a flash drive around his neck that boasts the goods of everybody. The interrogation scene is pretty amusing. Clocking in at a lean, mean, 97 minutes,
“Bullet to the Head” doesn’t wear out its welcome. You don’t even have to wait around to see what’s
after the end credits so you can clear out early. Were it not for the pedigree talent involved,
“Bullet to the Head” would qualify at best as a three-star rather than a
four-star movie. If you still like Stallone,
you'll love "Bullet to the Head" because it is worth shelling out the
bucks to watch this Spartan saga.